Open Thread: 1/21/18

With our SHOT Show coverage this week, I figured that it was a good time to clear the decks of a bunch of links that have been piling up. So grab a cold beverage, kick up your feet, and settle in for another exciting TTAK Open Thread.

ZOMG,ZOMG,ZOMG: Knives disguised as fashion accessories have UK knickers in a twist:

Instagram is being used to promote illegal knives designed to be attractive to young women, The Telegraph can disclose.

The knives – some disguised as lipsticks or combs and highly decorous – are being promoted through the photo-sharing website. The site, which is owned by the social media giant Facebook, is accused of “reprehensible” behaviour by promoting products banned in the UK.

An investigation by the Telegraph has uncovered a trail involving a US business specialising in selling knives to women that are then imported to the UK.

This newspaper discovered a young British mother who was bought an illegal “flickknife” decorated with a mermaid, for a Christmas present by her husband. The woman even gave the knife a name – calling it “Baby”. The importation of such knives is illegal under the UK’s strict knife crime laws. Instagram is used to promote the knives and link to the company’s website, based in North Carolina.

The Ben Kinsella Trust, a campaigning charity set up in memory of Ben Kinsella, a 16-year-old stabbed to death in Islington a decade ago, said it was appalling that Instagram was helping promote the US company Alien Outfitters.

“Instagram’s action in hosting this site is reprehensible,” said Patrick Green, the charity’s chief executive. “They are glamorising these knives as fashion accessories. This is a forum where young people openly encourage each other to break the law by buying flick knives and concealed knives which are illegal for any age group.”

Detectives are investigating more offences by children than ever – with some suspects as young as five.

Freedom of Information figures from more than half of the police forces in Britain reveal kids too young for prosecution have been named as a suspect or offender in more than 20,000 crimes since 2012.

The true figure could be even higher as 19 of 43 forces including Scotland, did not respond to the Daily Star Sunday’s request.

Police made enquiries into at least 390 rapes and more than 1,400 sex offences involving child suspects.

INTERESTING: History of the Wharncliffe Blade

According to the 1878 edition of “British Manufacturing Industries,” the first Lord of Wharncliffe — James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie — was having dinner with his relative Archdeacon Corbett in Great Britain.

During wine, the conversation turned to cutlery and the lack of innovation in “spring knives,” which I assume meant slip joints. Here’s an excerpt:

Not wishing to criticise where they could not improve, they laid their heads together, and with the assistance of a practical man succeeded in producing a new pattern knife.

Lord Wharncliffe was the patron of Joseph Rodgers & Son — Cutlers to Their Majesties and one of the most important figures in the famed Sheffield cutlery industry — and so he presented the pattern to him.

The blade was created and called the Wharncliffe blade after the Lord himself a few years later.

“It is a known fact that women have been the fastest-growing demographic for several years now, and we continue to grow. There is a chance that our data is a course correction for the industry, too, based on the responses received after our query of a sizable number of women,” Karen Butler, president and founder of Shoot Like A Girl, said. “We have the unique opportunity with our social media and email lists to reach over 146,000 women who participate and/or are interested in shooting sports, and they were enthusiastic to provide their input.”

I don’t know. I would have a hard time reclaiming an actual Civil War relic. But it is beautiful work.

David has a Sunday Funny in the morning, and I have enough material to run an update Sunday evening. Then it begins. SHOT Show 2018. I am not going, but I am going to be working with Mark Zalesky of Knife Magazine, and should be able to have much better access to SHOT material.

comments

Steve (Green Beetle) addresses the Civil War “relic-ness” of the bayonet in the commentary version of the video for his Patreon subscribers. Long story short, it’s not an especially rare example and they’re all over eBay so he didn’t feel so bad about repurposing it.

wharny variations are 80% of my grand piano pile. they have all added a little belly (insingo, dividend, leek, 555mini, swindle) as have i. all of these bellies will assist in my survival attempts, with the prep kit reserves reduced accordingly. i’m quite sure that i could survive for one week on water.
alienoutfitters was an interesting diversion.